Updated Google Appliance Can Search 10 Million Documents

Google Inc announced on Tuesday the availability of an upgraded version of its Google Search Appliance, which the company sells to businesses and government organizations to search office documents.

The updated Google Search Appliance will store up to 10 million documents in a single, pizza-box sized device, and has a self-contained search system to manage electronic files.

The new device has the same capacity as previous versions that came in a five-box rack.

Google also sells a 12-box version of the appliance in a refrigerator-sized rack can search up to 30 million documents.

The Google Search Appliances use Google’s software to power the search services, while running on storage hardware from Dell Inc.

Once installed in a corporate network, the appliances help locate documents in various different applications, such as IBM’s FileNet, EMC Corp’s Documentum, Open Text’s LiveLink and Microsoft Corp’s SharePoint.

Among the new features in the latest version are improved encryption and the ability receive Google Alerts when colleagues store new documents on the network.

And network administrators can now manage the appliances in 27 languages, with the recent additions of Czech, Turkish, Vietnamese and Portuguese.

Google generates nearly 98 percent of its revenue from advertising. But since the Mountain View, California-based company does not release revenue for search appliances, part of the company’s enterprise software and services business, it is difficult to confirm Google’s claim to be the market share leader in enterprise and consumer search.

“We estimate, with obviously imperfect information, that we are the market leader,” Matt Glotzbach, Google Enterprise’s product management director, said in a phone interview with Reuters.

Competitors for Google Search Appliance include products from IBM, Microsoft, and Autonomy of Britain.